VA CHIEF: VETS IN CROSSFIRE

More than 3.8 million American veterans will stop getting monthly disability checks in November, pension payments will cease for 315,000 military retirees and a half million college students will lose the GI Bill if the federal government shutdown continues into late October.

That grim news was delivered by U.S. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Wednesday in testimony to the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

It drew alarm from San Diego County veterans, who predicted that mortgage payments will be skipped and the economic effect will spill over into restaurants and other local businesses.

“It’ll be a hardship and in some cases have near-tragic consequences,” said Jack Harkins, chairman of the San Diego County United Veterans Council.

Separately on Wednesday, the House passed a bill restoring the $100,000 “death gratuity” usually paid to survivors of U.S. troops killed in combat. Those payments have been suspended since Oct. 1, and affected the family of 1st Lt. Jennifer Moreno, 25, of San Diego, an Army nurse killed Sunday in Afghanistan.

“How have veterans and the military become part of this partisan issue?” asked Bill Rider, director of veterans affairs for the city of San Diego and chairman of the American Combat Veterans of War, based in Oceanside.

Rider fought in Vietnam as a Marine Corps sergeant, was injured three times and now draws a disability check as a result.

“The very people who make this country’s ideals and policies possible — how can they punish us?” he asked. “I’m upset with it. This is not what I exposed myself to war to get done.”

San Diego County is home to 240,000 U.S. military veterans, though not all are drawing VA benefits.

Shinseki said those checks will halt next month if the federal shutdown continues into late October.

Another casualty of the shutdown will be progress made on the VA’s claims backlog, which has been the subject of intense scrutiny all year by Congress and the nation’s veterans groups.

Shinseki said that nearly 5,600 veterans a day will not receive a decision on their disability claims, starting in November.

“We have brought down the backlog by over 30 percent, or 190,000 claims since March,” Shinseki told Congress. “This lapse in funds will likely increase the backlog instead of continuing the progress.”

In San Diego — home to more than 30,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, some of whom may be still awaiting their initial disability decision — the VA regional claims-processing office has furloughed about 200 of 550 employees.

Acting director Shana Santoyo said the people sent home were in jobs not dedicated to claims processing. “That group has been kept intact for as long as we have funding for that,” she said.

San Diego’s VA medical system will remain largely untouched. Funding for the VA’s Veterans Health Administration is separate and has been approved in advance.

The House has passed legislation that would provide veterans disability, pension and other benefits in the event of a prolonged shutdown. But the Senate hasn’t taken up the bill, and the White House has urged lawmakers not to take a piecemeal approach to continuing government services.

Shinseki made that case as well, saying it’s not the best solution for veterans. He noted that even if the VA were fully funded, some services to veterans would suffer.

He said the Labor Department has largely shut down its VETS program, which provides employment and counseling services to veterans. The Small Business Administration has closed 10 centers focused on helping veterans create and operate businesses. And the Housing and Urban Development Department is not issuing new vouchers to homeless vets, though those relying on vouchers to pay rent will be able to continue using them.

Some San Diegans will be hit with a double whammy if VA funding stops.

University of California San Diego student Brian Oller lives off the roughly $2,000 monthly stipend that comes as part of the GI Bill. On top of that, he gets $385 a month due to a 30 percent disability incurred during his five years as Marine Corps helicopter crew chief.

“Essentially I do my monthly budget for about $2,600 a month. To go from $2,600 to zero, you tell me if that hurts. That doesn’t hurt, that’s a death blow, and on such short notice, too,” said Oller, 31, a Texas native who is studying at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

“If you are going to do it, give me some lead time. I can make arrangements; I can find a job,” he said. “It’s not like jobs are all over the place around here. It’s going to take a little while to find something other than part-time at minimum wage.”

At San Diego State University, at least 2,100 students are veterans who use the GI Bill for tuition.

One is Tom Swindle, 30, a former Navy gunner’s mate. He said he and his fellow student veterans are concerned.

“I have what I have left in my savings, and I’m hoping it doesn’t go to November 1st. After that, I’m not really sure on what there is left to do. I don’t know how it stands for us to go get student loans. That’s something we’ll have to look into,” Swindle said.

“The great news is they’ve taken care of our tuition (for the term) and books. But I don’t think they have sleeping bags for those people in the gym.”

Several San Diego veterans expressed frustration that they were just learning about this problem with basically three weeks’ notice. Some said they felt powerless to change the situation.

“I feel like the country is kind of hogtied and our hands behind our back. What can we do?” asked Rich Gilbert, a UC San Diego student who might endure a triple hit due to federal funding crises this year.

The medically retired Marine Corps scout sniper stands to lose his GI Bill and monthly disability check — plus he was laid off from his job at a defense contracting firm in the spring because of the military budget cuts known as sequestration.

The Kentucky-based Disabled American Veterans has prompted its members to send 18,000 emails to Congress since Friday, said Joe Violante, national legislative director. Their message: Sit down and end this shutdown.

“It’s just too devastating to imagine if our government can’t find a way to resolve this,” Violante said.

“I don’t even want to speculate on what we might see. A lot of these veterans survive only because of their disability compensation,” he said. “There will be a lot of people who will probably never recover from this.”

The New York-based Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America launched a petition on the website
Change.org to push federal leaders to end the shutdown.

There’s a lot of money on the table. The amount paid out by the VA ranges from $127 monthly for a 10 percent disability to more than $3,000 monthly for a 100 percent disabled veteran with a spouse and children.